


The First Night

by Helloootricksterr



Series: Lights For Eight Nights [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hanukkah, Judaism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 02:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helloootricksterr/pseuds/Helloootricksterr
Summary: Jake lights Chanukah candles for the first time in a long time.





	The First Night

**Author's Note:**

> It came to me in a sudden burst of inspiration. I'm Jewish and Chanukah is one of my favorite holidays. Written in under an hour and unbeta'ed, this is a story of love and traditions and how both bring up long lost memories.

Jake Peralta loves his fiancee.

So damn much.

She loves him too. She proves it with the menorah. She found one that’s a t-rex. And it’s kosher. He hasn’t lit the candles in years, maybe once or twice since he moved out of his mom’s place. But he lost that cheap menorah a long time ago. 

Their shared apartment is decorated in the first week of December. They agree to go easy on the decorations. A small realistic but plastic tree is in the living room, decorated with candy canes and shaterproof decorations. 

Jake likes the tree, but he has mixed feelings about the menorah.

Yes, it’s super cool and the candles are also on the windowsill nearby, ready to be lit. Amy had gone to Williamsburg and picked up a siddur with an English translation to be able to say the blessings. Jake feels like the book is taunting him. 

“Are you sure you’re Jewish?” It asks him. It’s two hours away from when he has to open the book and struggle to read out loud the language he barely understood as a child. He watches the candleholder like he expects it to start moving. It represents a part of him he doesn’t think of much.

He thought he was excited to go through the ritual again. Light the candles, sing a song, enjoy the candles with the lights off, and then doughnuts. That’s what his mom did with him when he was a kid. Amy smiled when he told her this and after that was secretly on the hunt for the best menorah. 

But now he has his doubts. Can he remeber how to say the blessing right? Will it feel the same way that it felt with his mom? Too soon the sky grows dark and it’s time. Amy is excited to learn how to do this and watches with rapt eyes. He cracks the binder of the siddur and finds where the Chanukah blessings are in the directory and flips to the right page.

He quietly researched the right way to put in the candles earlier.

Jake remembers how to melt the bottom of the candle to make it stick in its hole. The candle sits on the tail of the dino, lonely. The lit one in his hand will join it on the other end of the menorah at a higher point.

The siddur is made for people like him, it has transliteration from the Hebrew words to English pronunciation. 

“Bah-ruch ah-tah ah-doh-nai, el-oh-hey-nu mel-ech ha-oh-lum.” He recites, slowly remeberinng the tune to sing this to. 

“Ah-share kid-dish-sha-new bih-mitz-voh-sav” His voice grows higher in the old tune, old memories once thought forgotten now being dusted off. 

“Vih-tse-vah-new! lih-had-lick-neir!” The singing reaches its peak and his register goes back down to the last words.

“Shell cha-nu-kah!” 

Amy’s eye are wide and they move from his face to the small dripping candle. And then back to his face when it doesn’t move. 

“Babe, there’s another one.” He assures her with more assurance then he had about himself three minutes ago.

“Bah-ruch ah-tah ah-doh-nai, el-oh-hey-nu mel-ech ha-oh-lum, sheh-ah-sah nee-sim la-voh-tai-new, bi-ya-mim ha-haim! Lahs-mahn-ha-zeh!” He lights the candle on the tail and resists all urges to blow out the small candle that resembles birthday cake candles. 

Lit at both ends, the dinosaur looks weird, but the candlelight reflected in the window makes him feel like he wants to cry. Without him noticing, Amy turns off the lights. She takes his hand and leads him to the couch. 

The couch is parallel to the window, So Amy arranges a agreeable Jake to lean back against the arm of the couch and prop up his feet on the couch she then sat herself down between his legs and leaned back on his chest. Automatically his arms wrap around her, eyes still on the two small flames. 

They share the silence, watching the candles flicker. No phones, no work, no distractions. Jake feels Amy breathe and holds her a little tighter. 

Jake loves this overprepared woman so much because she takes his arms off of herself and leans over to the floor to pick up a small box of doughnuts and passes him one. 

She gets a sugar-dusted kiss four seconds later.

Life is sweet, and looks as bright as the candles burning away on the windowsill.


End file.
